From this point forward, Dennis Tyler will set a new standard for Muncie mayors each morning when he greets a new day.

In all, 28 men and one woman have served as the city’s mayor since its incorporation in 1865.

As of June 24, none of his predecessors have been older than Tyler – who will be 76 in December – while serving in Muncie’s highest office.

The mayor this summer exceeded the age standard set by Republican Joseph Barclay, who was 75 years and 201 days when he left office on Jan. 1, 1956.

The accomplishment passed without formal notice, in the form of a celebration or parade. W/R had intended to place a memorial wreath at Barclay’s final resting place, in Elm Ridge Memorial Park’s mausoleum, but frankly, we forgot.

(Barclay is one of three former mayors – James P. Carey and Leonidas Guthrie are the others – in the Elm Ridge mausoleum. Four other mayors are buried in the surrounding cemetery, while no fewer than 15 Muncie mayors now call Beech Grove Cemetery home.)

Even local Republicans would likely acknowledge Tyler, a Democratic bicycling enthusiast, could easily be mistaken for being several years younger than he is.

And he lives in a political climate where, in many respects, 75 appears to be the new 50.

Many Democrats are hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden will be a candidate for president in 2020.

Biden is two weeks older than Tyler.

Others would like Democrat Bernie Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont, to make another bid for the White House in two years.

Sanders is a year older than Biden and Tyler.

The current president is 72 years old, and his opponent in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, will celebrate her 71st birthday in October.

A non-ghost story

The final home of another Muncie mayor – or at least a building that stands at the same location – will soon be coming down.

The building that for several years was part of a three-structure Star Press facility, at High and Main streets, will be demolished to make way for part of Ivy Tech’s growing presence in the downtown.

Other businesses earlier occupied that portion of the 100 block of North High Street, north of a building at Jackson and High that for decades was headquarters of The Muncie Evening Press and later The Muncie Star.

Over the years those tenants included barber shops, hair salons, a Sears farm store and eateries, including the Kewpie Hotel – which, oddly, was a lunch stand, not a hotel – and later, at the same location, the Hi-Hat Hamburger Restaurant.

There were also second-floor apartments, and it was in one of them that George Washington Cromer – the only Muncie mayor to later serve in Congress – drew his last breath on Nov. 8, 1936.

Cromer – in his day a major Republican power-broker in East Central Indiana – was an attorney and also a former Delaware County prosecutor.

In his last days, he expressed frustration he was too ill to cast a ballot in that year’s general election, dying five days after Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won a second term as president.

There is absolutely no truth to rumors that the ghostly image of Cromer sometimes appears on the second floor of the soon-to-be-demolished building during the overnight hours, touting the attributes of Alf Landon, FDR’s Republican challenger in 1936.

A familiar face returns

A former mayor – who is decidedly still among us – made one of his regular visits to Muncie last week.

David Dominick, elected mayor of Muncie in 1991, returns to the city regularly from his life in Minnesota, where he is a YMCA executive.

Last week while he was in town he visited the Muncie on the Move program, a monthly breakfast gathering to promote businesses and share good news.

Dominick noted it was his first Muncie on the Move in 24 years. He later told W/R the program was “awesome” with “lots of positive energy.”